We spend a lot of time writing about public pensions because the aggregate underfunding levels, $3 - $5 trillion on the low end, are simply staggering and at some point they will be realized for the ponzi schemes that they are and the systemic risk they represent to the global financial system. Until then we'll just keep shouting into the abyss.
Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,
“Companies are doing everything they can to get rid of pension plans, and they will succeed.”
– Ben Stein
“Lady Madonna, children at your feetWonder how you manage to make ends meetWho finds the money when you pay the rent?Did you think that money was heaven sent?”
– “Lady Madonna,” The Beatles
Via Global Macro Monitor blog,
We have been busy crunching some very interesting data on pension funds from the most recent Federal Reserve’s, Flow of Funds Accounts. Check out the charts below.
Interestingly, the last time Private and State & Local Government Pensions were fully funded was at the end of the stock market bubble in 2000. Pensions were 25 percent overfunded in 1999.
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
It's Easter time again, which means it's time to talk about chocolate. Simaran Sethi at the Los Angeles Times this week highlights the plight of cacao farmers:
What wasn’t factored into the celebration [over falling chocolate prices] is the deep suffering of the subsistence farmers who grow cacao, the seeds of a pod-shaped fruit that, once harvested, become the cocoa traded on the commodities market and destined for the chocolate eggs and bunnies that fill most Easter baskets.
On his first full working day in the White House, President Trump issued an executive order implementing a hiring freeze until such time that his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, a position now filled by Mick Mulvaney, could recommend a “long-term plan” to reduce the federal workforce. While the initial EO allowed 90 days for such a plan to be crafted and presented, like many of Trump's other policy initiatives, that deadline proved overly aggressive and has been pushed back to the end of June, with final plans due in September...the swamp apparently doesn't drain a